Displays for industrial control systems, process control systems, Supervisory Control and Data acquisition (SCADA) systems and the like are used to display a graphic diagram of the industrial system to operators monitoring the industrial system.
Operators may thereby be able to recognize an alarm or a trend in the industrial system and, as a result, take measures to solve the problem giving rise to the alarm or trend.
FIG. 1 shows an example of a single line diagram of part of a distribution system 1 in a power grid. There is a lot of different information in the single line diagram relating to the distribution system that it represents. Some elements or equipment is presented in a different color to indicate a different type of information.
The diagram shows two buses, lines A and B which each supply a number of transformers, bays and a number of sub-systems or sub-stations.
A transformer is indicated by a graphic symbol for a generator 3 and a transformer 3 is indicated by a generator symbol. Beside the generator object, a value for reactive power or reactive effect of −44.4 MVAr is also displayed in a contrasting color to the color of the other values displayed in the rest of the schematic diagram. Thus the attention of an operator is drawn to a reduced and selected number of values displayed in a contrast color. Hence a state or value that is different from a pre-set state or value may be displayed in a way to show that the state or value diverges from the pre-set value.
However the exemplary process diagram of a two-dimensional representation for a part of a power network control system is still somewhat cluttered. A great number of numerical displays of states and values are often arranged in one single process diagram, presenting a challenge to an operator as being difficult both to absorb an overview as well as to focus on one or more values or equipment states in particular.
Patent application US2008/0049013 discloses systems and methods for real-time advanced visualization for predicting the health, reliability and performance of an electrical power system. In particular, a system for real-time three dimensional visualization of an electrical system is disclosed. A virtual system modeling engine predicts data output for an electrical system. A three-dimensional visualization engine renders the virtual system model and forecasted aspects into a three-dimensional visual model.
Another process visualization system is known from DE 10 2004 003 570.
However for the purposes of supervision and control of computer controlled power distribution systems as well as some other industrial processes and automation, there exist drawbacks with known display systems and methods.